The directive would “turn workplaces and educational settings across the country into laboratories for a massive social experiment, flouting the democratic process, and running roughshod over common-sense policies protecting children and basic privacy rights,” the lawsuit charges.

An award-winning St. Paul charter school is ripping out urinals and creating “gender-neutral restrooms” — at the cost of thousands of dollars, after being sued by parents of a kindergartener, who’s since transferred, reports the Daily Signal.

I predict schools will create private rest rooms and changing stalls in locker rooms to avoid conflict. It will be costly. Will it be worth it?

Earlier this week, the Department of Justice sued North Carolina over its “bathroom law” requiring people to use the public bathroom that “corresponds to the sex on their birth certificates,” notes NPR.

Under federal law, Title IX, schools that receive federal funding are not allowed to discriminate against students on the basis of sex. The guidance going out to school districts on Friday makes it clear that as far as the departments of Justice and Education are concerned, that word “sex” includes gender identity.

The administration is threatening to deny federal funds to school districts that don’t comply.

This is bureaucratic overreach, writes Hans Bader, who worked in the Education Department’s Civil Rights Office years ago. “Title IX does not mandate national central planning for bathrooms.”

Telling transgender students to use a private restroom, instead of the one that matches their gender identity, is not OK, according to the guidelines. If there’s a “girls’ room” — or a “girls’ locker room — then students who see themselves as girls have a civil right to use it, the Education Department says.

Letting transgender students use girls’ restrooms, which have private stalls, is not the real problem, I think. (I’ll let males comment on letting a transgender male use the boys’ room.)

While I don’t fear transgender students will molest classmates, I do worry that creepy “cis” guys will see an opportunity to invade locker rooms.

In college dorms, transgender students would have a right “to access housing consistent with their gender identity.” So, your daughter could share a room with a biological male who identifies as female, while your son could be undressing in front of a biological female who identifies as male.

I think many middle-of-the-road voters will share those qualms, question whether shared locker rooms and dorm rooms are a civil right and resent being called bigots.

Donald Trump said states should decide and pointed out, accurately, that transgender people are a “tiny, tiny” percentage of the population.

I haven’t seen a comment from Hillary Clinton yet today on the new guidelines. If I were her, I’d be nervous.

At Miami’s iPrep Academy, Nicole Rasmuson teaches math, using “smart” software that analyzes mistakes, tracks how long a student takes to answer and checks for understanding, reports John Tulenko.

The software uses student data to customize lessons. “It’ll ask them, what are your interests?” says the teacher. “And so, in the word problems, it’ll — if one kid’s really interested in food, it’ll talk about cookies and that kind of stuff. It’ll even ask them, what are your friends’ names? And then it’ll put their friends’ names in the problems, too.”

Does it matter if software remembers that Jayden struggled with fractions, Maya likes soccer and Kim’s best friend in third grade was Jamie?

A “privilege” survey asking middle-school students to list their skin color, gender and sexual orientation, religion and disability status — in Spanish class — annoyed Tampa parents, reports WTSP. The teacher, who said she meant to teach about inequality, has been suspended pending an investigation.

The seventh- and eighth-graders were asked to specify “skin color” as well as race.

“Muslim/Sikh” and “Hindu/Buddhist” were among the religion choices.

Children could choose “intersex,” rather than male or female, and go on to identify as “cisgendered,” “transgendered,” “genderqueer,” straight, gay, bisexual, pansexual or asexual.

Regina Stile’s daughter circled “mental disability” on the survey because the teacher had said ADHD is a mental illness, Stile told WTSP. “To me ADHD is not a mental disability,” Stile said. She also said her daughter, who’s 12, did not know what some of the gender choices meant.

I’m 64 and I didn’t know “genderqueer” till I looked it up. And I’m still a bit fuzzy.

I learned “cis” a few years ago. It means you’re a male who identifies as male or a female who identifies as female. I think it’s possible to be “cis” and “genderqueer.”

Some of these rooms had cameras. In one cringe-worthy video recording, a teacher forced an 8-year-old boy with autism inside a room, forced him to the floor and held the door shut despite his protests.

Parents protested. State Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Texas, sponsored legislation to “give a voice to someone who could not speak up when they were abused at school.” He says videotaping also will protect teachers from false accusations.

It’s not clear how many cameras will be required or how much it will cost to record and store footage.

If one parent requests camera, other students’ parents can’t block the videotaping.

A Boston-area school district is apologizing for asking middle and high school students to fill out a survey for the Harvard Graduate School of Education’s “Making Caring Common Project.”

“How fair do your parents think it is that some people in this country have a lot of money and others just have a little money?” asks one question, prompting students to select responses ranging from “very fair” to “unfair” to “I’m not sure.”

“Do your parents do anything to help people who have less money?” another question asks.

Although the survey was optional, parents complained the questions were intrusive.

“My kids have no idea how much money I make and how much money I give to people,” one mother told Fox News. “And frankly, it’s none of the school’s business or Harvard’s for that matter.”

Christopher Farmer, the superintendent of Triton Regional School District, agreed some questions were inappropriate. The district has withdrawn from the project. Data from Triton students will be deleted.

Richard Weissbourd, a Harvard psychologist who runs Making Caring Common, said, “We stand by the survey.”

“We are trying to gather information that will help schools and parents engage young people in discussions about race and inequality,” Weissbourd said. “Hard to have those discussions if you don’t hear from young people.”

LearnSphere will not collect any personal information such as student names, addresses, social security numbers, race, family income or special education designations.

The ultimate goal is to translate research questions into computer commands that can be run on any dataset. For example, how many times does a student need to repeat or practice something before it becomes knowledge? Or when is the optimal time to give feedback, right away or after a bit?

. . . He recently studied how much students learned when they were taking a free online course, a MOOC, in introductory psychology. He asked what increased student learning the most: videos, reading assignments or online interactive tasks? “Most instructors are spending their time on videos. But our model suggests, for every activity you do, you get six times the bump than for every video you watch,” said Koedinger. “Maybe someone will say, ‘I don’t believe it for my course, I think the videos are more valuable.’ Let’s see for yourself with your own data and see what you get.”

LearnSphere will not store school records on its servers. It will allow researchers to analyze “keyboard clicks as students are using educational software, the millions of keystrokes they make as they answer questions, hit backspace or sit idly daydreaming and uninterested.”

Her son’s high school offers a “parent portal” to its information system. Parents can check their child’s attendance, grades and test scores online.

“Our best data suggests that over 80 percent of parents and students who have access – meaning their school has enabled remote access – use the system at least once a week…and many users check multiple times a day,” said Bryan Macdonald, senior vice president of PowerSchool.

Lahey trusts her son to tell her how he’s doing. But some parents love the information portal, she writes.

Teachers also have mixed feelings. The portal makes it easy to communicate — and for overanxious parents to drive their kids (and their kids’ teachers) even crazier.